This is a novel process for reducing the water content of a 2-oxazoline compound. In particular, this process relates to the treatment of the 2-oxazoline with a dialkyl hydrogen phosphite or a halosilane compound followed by separation of the resultant purified 2-oxazoline.
In the preparation of 2-oxazoline compounds, water and other impurities are coproduced which have a deleterious effect upon the properties of the 2-oxazoline. For example, in the polymerization of a 2-oxazoline the presence of even a small amount of water can cause premature chain termination so that the average molecular weight of the resulting polymer is relatively low.
Seeliger et al. teach in Angew. Chem. International Ed., Vol. 5 (1966) on pages 882-883 that 2-oxazolines can be purified adequately for polymerization purposes by fractional distillation. However, we have observed that the purity of a 2-oxazoline obtained by simple fractional distillation is not generally suitable for polymerization or certain other end uses. U.S. Pat. No. 3,326,929 discloses that 2-oxazolines can also be purified by distillation in the presence of acid chlorides or anhydrides.